Finally got that stick out of my butt

It feels much better now.

I don't generally have a stick up my butt. At least I don't think so. But it's a bit of a different story when it comes to teaching. I came into it thinking (and with good cause) that as a teacher you have to act a certain way. It is largely true. I can't really swear or make dirty jokes. I can't give the kids a playful punch (most of the people I playfully punch probably wish I felt that way about them). I can't wear what I want. There are a lot of restrictions on how you can act. You have to have a certain level of propriety.

But there's more to it than that. It's more than just the things you're not allowed to do. There are also the things you have to do, like write and grade tests, discipline students, fail students. Being the person in charge changes you. When the responsibility is on your shoulders and it's your job to make other people do things they don't want to do, it warps you a little bit, even if you're doing it for their own good. It's interesting- bosses or managers at a normal workplace aren't assigning work for their employees' benefits, but neither are they so vested in their employees' performance. Of course a manager cares if their employees do well, but if an employee consistently fails, they just fire that employee and get another one. There's a certain point where the responsibility just isn't yours anymore. That's true of teaching too, but the line isn't drawn in exactly the same place. I carry more responsibility for my students than a manager does for his employees. If a student never takes it upon themselves to study, it's not my fault, but I am supposed to take measures to prevent such a thing. Perhaps a manager is supposed to do that too. I don't know.

Anyway, I've rambled away from my point from earlier. Being in charge changes you and the way you act. Even if I didn't have any restrictions on how I could act, the relation between a teacher and student can never be like an interaction between two people who don't have control over each other's life. I remember reading in my history textbook in high school that slavery warped owners as well as slaves. At the time I thought it interesting, but also sort of wrote it off. No more than a paragraph was devoted to the ill effects slavery had upon slavers (and for very good politically correct reason). I'm not sure I would go so far as to say "warped" myself, but I do know from experience that it changes you, and not for the better. You have a job to do, and you want to get it done. Your job is to control the actions of people. That's a pretty tough job. It takes a special personality and a lot of skill to control people effectively. If you don't know what you're doing, at best, people will chafe under you and perpetrate small acts of vengeance. At worst there will be an open rebellion and you'll get a painful dose of just how ineffective you really are.

I've had everything from chafing to open rebellion this semester. I wasn't exactly managing effectively. I had in my mind all these rules and regulations and artificial systems, as well as all these ideas about how to effectively teach, how to differentiate, how to write a test, how to grade, etc. Rules, like regulating bathroom passes and requiring students to change seats, can be useful and important, but if you don't have the background and understanding needed, you won't know when the rules should bend and when they should be disregarded. Add to that the fact that I've been something of a pompous ass (I don't generally put others down or anything, nor do I get particularly jealous if someone does happen to best me, but I am rather prideful and do have myself on something of a pedestal. Can you blame me? I'm amazing!), and it's no surprise that I haven't been managing effectively.

I think it all comes from the biggest dread of management- to be ignored. I was ignored at first as well. I think a full out riot is worse (and much harder to stop), but being ignored is really frustrating. If someone doesn't stop talking when you tell them to, then why should anybody stop talking? And then why should anyone bother listening to you? If your bark has no bite, then you're the worst kind of manager. But you don't need bite when talking to your friends. I barely even use bite with my enemies - I prefer avoidance to confrontation. So my "warping" began when I discovered the need for bite, and developed it.

It starts off with Threats. Threats are an unpleasant thing to have to do. I never Threaten people usually. I think I'd be pretty intolerable to others if I did, and I'd probably be a little intolerable to myself as well. But heaven forbid I be ignored! Therefore I must Threaten.

But as any manager can tell you, Threats are not enough. You have to back them up every so often. And so there must be Consequences. Fortunately for me, the Consequences in high school are not too severe. They mostly involve standing outside (in effect, punishment by boredom, plus a little suspense) and waiting for a talking to, which can also be unpleasant. Most high school students are not particularly well defended against or adept at one on one confrontation. The most successful ones will just start yelling or possibly cussing you out. Alternatively, they just clam up and remained clammed up for a while (thus achieving your purpose). Other more serious Consequences could be calling home or a referral, but that's about as severe as they get. The severity is important in the altering of personality, but simple willingness to inflict Consequences is the biggest change. Once you have have exercised Consequences, you are now a person of power, someone to be wary of. Everyone's demeanor towards you changes. Immediately, that change is for the better. You are no longer ignored. You can now get your job done effectively, which is quite gratifying. The Consequence wasn't nearly as difficult to dish out as you might have imagined. It was not questioned or fought against as you may have feared. You also see the wariness as a type of respect. All this together makes the next Consequence a lot easier. Give it one or two more instances, and you have become not only a person who Threatens, but also a person with the power and, more importantly, the willingness to inflict Consequences.

But consequences aren't really what gets a student (or any other sort of employee) to work. It keeps them settled and in line and it prevents the dreaded ineffectiveness that results from being ignored, but it isn't really an effective motivator. It is still necessary. If no one will listen to you, how can you motivate? But something else is necessary as well. Several somethings else, in fact. Caring about your students is an oft quoted one. It probably is the most effective way to get people to work for you. If you can convince them that your motives are their own personal welfare, they're far more likely to listen and go along with what you say. This is one place where teachers have a leg up on the average manager. Our charges really are our primary concern.

Even though caring about your students is probably the most important thing a teacher needs to do to get through, there are other necessary actions and stances as well. The most contradictory of these is that you must take what your students say with a grain of salt. You have to care about them and regard them as smart, thinking individuals (they really are), but you also have to recognize just how ignorant they are. And you can't hold it against them! Normally arrogant people earn only my scorn (I like to think my own brand of arrogance is simply confidence. And I do recognize my own limitations fairly realistically for the most part. Yes, I am a little hypocritical, but I am pretty good about respecting those around me and keeping my opinion of myself to myself.), but with arrogant teenagers, you have to accept it and like them anyway. It's who they are. They are only just beginning to gain (regain?) some confidence and most of them don't know how to go about it properly. So you get a lot of posturing and certainty about things they can't possibly know. Don't take them seriously, especially when it comes to your own job. I certainly won't claim to know what I'm doing, but I am also reasonably certain at this point that I know far more than they.

So you must care for and respect, but also not respect, your charges. It is difficult, but it's something you get the hang of. The next important thing to keep in mind is the rules. You have to know them inside and out. And what I mean by that primarily, is that you have to know which ones are really serious, which ones are tertiary, and which ones you would be better off ignoring. Someone in my cohort uses the Go Green system. He turns a card every time a student does something they shouldn't. It's a fine system, especially for beginners as a scaffold, but it is generally pretty meaningless and excessively rigid. Our advisor Dan said that most veteran teachers don't use it. It's difficult to be consistent. If you respond the same way every time, you'll interrupt the flow of a lecture. You also aren't going to catch everything that everyone does, and then he people who were caught will start to complain. It solves a lot of problems (transparency and appropriate response to appropriate crime for example), but it can raise a lot of them also. When you don't know anything, when you don't know how to react to the million of little things that can go on, it's very reassuring to have a rigid system where everything is set up.

I never used Go Green, but I recently had a similar realization about the rigidity of my own posturing. I was a proper teacher who didn't step out of line and who loved all things even remotely mathematical and who would certainly never tease her students. Forcing myself to be something I wasn't was very draining. I went to class every day and left it exhausted and needing to watch Star Trek or something to get me back to myself. The rigidity was useful to me. It helped me know how I should behave in novel situations where I had only a second to decide what my course of action should be. I would ask, "How should a teacher react?" and then I would do what I felt I should. I'm not entirely sure how I broke out of that. Probably just experience. I still fit into the mold more than is optimal in all likelihood, but I have broken free to a much greater extent. I remember the first time I finished class and thought it was fun. It wasn't that long ago. The other day, I felt like I had more energy upon leaving the class instead of less. It takes a lot of energy to put up a false persona. I realized that the first time in high school and began striving to be as honest with myself as possible. I've realized it again only recently, when I got that "proper teacher" stick out of my ass. I'm beginning to realize I will be a most improper teacher. I still won't do anything inappropriate or violate any of my restrictions, but I will tease my students. I will throw a tantrum and toss my whiteboard marker on the floor when people stop paying attention. I will brush off and ignore someone who is hassling me instead of explaining my reasoning and wasting class time (students will often make demands in front of the class that it really isn't wise to respond to). It's quite liberating to be the softhearted grouch I consider myself to be.

I will conclude this entry with a warning to all people of the world who think they can do better than the people in charge: the bosses, the managers, the teachers, etc. You can't. At least not at first. In the beginning, everyone will be wary of you and you will have an initial rush that just maybe you do have a knack for this managing thing. With everyone on their toes, you realize that you are just as good and fair minded as you thought you were. People will listen to you because of how reasonable you are. You won't ever have to force people down like the cads before you. Then someone will ignore you. Then several someones. Then you will go down the same path of Threats and Consequences that every other human being in power has ever done and become just as big an oaf as any superior you ever disliked. The sheer inevitability of it this semester has really struck me. If you really care, you'll get past it. I think I will be a fine manager of students one day. I'm even not that bad today, but it has been a slow and arduous process, one damaging to my own self image more than anything else. I am pleased at the lessons I've learned (care, don't listen to what people say too closely, recognize rules for what they are, be yourself). Some of them may seem obvious even to the point of being trite (I'm looking at you "be yourself"), but they were hard learned and painfully won. I know I have a lot more progress to make. I'm no expert by any means. I'm just happy at this point to have that stick out my rear.